File this story under local government - especially under local economic development.
The Chronicle reports that efforts are underway by Houston business leaders to make the area around the GRB Convention Center and Discovery Green in downtown Houston more pedestrian friendly in time for the 2017 Super Bowl.
Houston is commonly criticized as being primarily a car city - with good reason - but research suggests that the best and brightest among the millennial generation gravitate towards cities where they can walk and bike easily to restaurants and all that. Making Houston more pedestrian friendly involves a variety of changes in how the city is laid out - including having broader sidewalks that allow for bars and restaurants to set out tables and retail stores to set up shop.
That's the goal of the proposed renovations:
The Chronicle reports that efforts are underway by Houston business leaders to make the area around the GRB Convention Center and Discovery Green in downtown Houston more pedestrian friendly in time for the 2017 Super Bowl.
Houston is commonly criticized as being primarily a car city - with good reason - but research suggests that the best and brightest among the millennial generation gravitate towards cities where they can walk and bike easily to restaurants and all that. Making Houston more pedestrian friendly involves a variety of changes in how the city is laid out - including having broader sidewalks that allow for bars and restaurants to set out tables and retail stores to set up shop.
That's the goal of the proposed renovations:
The project, which has yet to be formally approved, would involve opening up the center's look by replacing the front walls with paned glass that allows dramatic views; adding restaurant and retail space and shaded places for people to sit at ground level; and reducing Avenida de las Americas that runs in front to three lanes from eight.
That space currently used by cars and buses would become a landscaped pedestrian area with a row of trees and tables for sidewalk dining.
"The convention center needs to be more than a big box to collect people," said Marie Hoke, principal at WHR Architects, the project's lead architect. "The goal is to break it down to a more human scale and offer more amenities to the building users and visitors to the district."
It would be the area's biggest makeover since Discovery Green and would leave its mark on the eastern edge of downtown long after the Super Bowl LI teams and their fans have departed for home.The article mentions that the upcoming game is providing a push to design and implement a variety of project designed to make the city seem not only like a good place to have a party, but a place people might consider moving to - and perhaps start a business.
A variety of local governments in the city are making proposals - I'll try to follow what gets done and what does not.
